Sexist Car insurance Industry

Sparky

its all about proving yourself to the Insurance company, if your a good driver they will reduce your premium, but if another september 11th comes along expect it to go up again.

Atleast the insurance now have a claims board, to deal with claims, i remember hearing people getting a few bruises after a slight bump and claiming 1000's, then they would be straight on hoiliday, thats what used to drive up premiums but now the insurance companies need some other excuse to get more money out of ya.

Insurance in ireland = Sexist, daylight robery.

And i have to ask the question (not being racist here) how do these black/africian people get insured, or do they even bother to get insured? Only ive seen a lot of nissan sunnys driving around with black people with no tax or insurance on them.

weemcd

had a friend (17 male) in a car crash yesterday. Typical boy racers, first car was a 1.9 tdi golf, too much power tbh. He can probably kiss driving goodbye for a few years.

Nasty_Girl

was he hurt?

seamus

Moved from AH

The_Conductor

weemcd wrote:

had a friend (17 male) in a car crash yesterday. Typical boy racers, first car was a 1.9 tdi golf, too much power tbh. He can probably kiss driving goodbye for a few years.

Hes 17 and he got a 1.9 Golf TDi and insurance on it, to boot?
My, times do change......
My first car at 17 was a 29 year old Volkswagon Beetle.
It had holes in the floor- anytime it rained water came in and splashed me or others. It was a rust bucket. That was 13 years ago. I'm still dreaming of that 1.9 TDi, and will probably still dreaming for some time to come......

Hopefully no-one was hurt. Your friend will get a shock when his insurance comes up for renewal though....... I was involved in an accident last year, my insurance (with Hibernian, and with an Ignition course done) went up by 60%. I keep my 30% Ignition discount, but loose my no-claims and my insurance is 60% higher- and I'm stuck with Hibernian for the next 4 years (as its unlikely that any other company will quote for me......) My accident resulted in three cars being written off, but no-one hurt (thankfully).

The_Conductor

Stekelly wrote:

It's all boolix and has nothing to do with statistics. It's purely because they get away with it. The same insurance companies are operating in other countries in a totally different way. They are able to operate an individual system elswhere, so why not here.

It's done on a personal levlel elswhere . ie you start off at your normal low rate, and the only thing that affects your premium from year to year is YOU, and YOUR driving, not what other people inyour age/sex bracket do.

I hardly think Ireland is an exception to every other country in the world with regard to young male drivers.

No, its not because they get away with it- its because they have a higher claims exposure from young male drivers. There is nothing strange or unusual- its plain economics at work. What is strange and unusual is that the market place is not at work in the other sectors- where "risk equalisation" is foisted on the population. It is a blatant discrimination that "risk equalisation" is enforced in certain sectors and not in others. It should either apply across the board, or alternatively be scrapped and people forced to pay according to their relative risk- as happens in an open economy. Women are entitled to cite risk equalisation as just cause for paying similar premia to men for all manners of assurance and insurance, however in the one area where they have a risk advantage from an insurance perspective- in car insurance, they are not willing to put the shoe on the other foot. It really is a case of females being allowed to have their cake and eat it......

Lord Nikon

Webmonkey wrote:

A rover 400 1.3l.

You can't get 1.3litre Rover 400's, you can get 1.4litre ones.

weemcd

aye he'll live, broken leg and shoulder possibly, he's back home now i think.

helluva lot of car for someone so young

Spent an awful lot of his parents and his own money on it tho.
Was a lovley car, i always thought he would of been different like, mature enough etc.
but sure this proves it about boys vs girls insurance.

bazz26

Also try http://www.bestquote.ie

Webmonkey

neuromancer wrote:

You can't get 1.3litre Rover 400's, you can get 1.4litre ones.

Yep sorry I ment 1.4l

Guy:Incognito

smccarrick wrote:

No, its not because they get away with it- its because they have a higher claims exposure from young male drivers. There is nothing strange or unusual- its plain economics at work. What is strange and unusual is that the market place is not at work in the other sectors- where "risk equalisation" is foisted on the population. It is a blatant discrimination that "risk equalisation" is enforced in certain sectors and not in others. It should either apply across the board, or alternatively be scrapped and people forced to pay according to their relative risk- as happens in an open economy. Women are entitled to cite risk equalisation as just cause for paying similar premia to men for all manners of assurance and insurance, however in the one area where they have a risk advantage from an insurance perspective- in car insurance, they are not willing to put the shoe on the other foot. It really is a case of females being allowed to have their cake and eat it......

So why are the same companies doing it completely different everywhere else.

Hotblack Desiato

Infini wrote:

THere was an article in the sun the other day. A guy sued an insurance company on sexual discrimination grounds after they quoted him for nearly E6000. Owned a clean drivers liscence and a bike. He not only won in the end but forced them to give him insurance for FREE. :cool:

Nothing to do with gender, he was 24 and they refused to quote (GSXR1000 sportsbike) on grounds of age which is illegal, went to the equality authority and won. So in future they'll probably just give a silly quote instead of a refusal...

pedro ferio-vti

Stekelly wrote:

So why are the same companies doing it completely different everywhere else.

Because they're only brand names, get some Busi&economics skillz man. The international names you see here in Ireland are only the irish companies rebranded to make it seem like they're this big multinational when in fact, the likes of Allianz, is really just good old Church & General, Eagle Star is Sheerans, AXA is just PMPA and Guardian.

It's a different environment here in Ireland, other posters have explained to you why you're getting raped for insurance, just live with it. Unless young drivers stop having accidents where 3 cars are written off as a result of it etc then nothing will change.

I will say that it is a good bit better than it used to be though.

ando

smccarrick wrote:

Hes 17 and he got a 1.9 Golf TDi and insurance on it

Jeez, I was 21 before I goto drive and even at that I was driven a 55 BHP van (0-60 eventually)! A 1.9Tdi is way to much grunt for a 17yr old imo

DubTony

pedro ferio-vti wrote:

The international names you see here in Ireland are only the irish companies rebranded to make it seem like they're this big multinational when in fact, the likes of Allianz, is really just good old Church & General, Eagle Star is Sheerans, AXA is just PMPA and Guardian.

Axa is a French which operates all over the world - they bought GRE a few years ago which in turn had bought PMPA previously
www.axa.com

Allianz is a German company operating all over the world. Check out the list on the left side of www.allianz.com

Zurich owns Eagle Star, and guess what? It operates all over the world.

These companies own the Irish companies and therefore have obviously decided to drop the old names and run with the recognised international one for branding purposes.

As for increasing womens premiums to match that of mens? Now that would cause a storm. I get the impression most of you guys aren't married. If my wife's premium was the same as mine we'd spend an extra €345 a year on car insurance.

If a male has a female named on the policy it usually reduces the cost. (Not sure about young drivers) This seemingly reduces the risk because the woman will be driving the car at some stage.

Tony

Guy:Incognito

pedro ferio-vti wrote:

It's a different environment here in Ireland, other posters have explained to you why you're getting raped for insurance, just live with it. Unless young drivers stop having accidents where 3 cars are written off as a result of it etc then nothing will change..

I'm standing by my opinion that we shouldnt be charged anymore than young drivers in other countries. Theres 17-18 year olds in Germany driving souped up BMW 5 series and bigger who are paying a fraction of what a similar driver is paying on his 1 litre micra.

The English have exactly the same ,if not worse "boy racer" culture that we have here, and in Europe its the same. The only difference is the level of testing and the fact that you have to take lessons, but thats the governments fault.

At the end of the day, young drivers are young drivers wherever they are from, and if young male drivers here are causing more claims here then I'll bet you its the same in England and Europe.

The fact of it is they start low and work up (if they have claims) whereas here, we start Very very high and gradually drop over long periods (10 years or so) to a level that is still unacceptible. My ex is 29 this month, has been driving on her own insurance for nearly 9 years claim free and her renewal next month is the first sub €1000 she has got (its down to around €780) .My uncle is an insurance broker in Germany and he laughs at these figures. He nearly got sick when I started driving a 1.2 clio at 19 and was paying £2600.

madrab

MorningStar wrote:

How about higher pension contributions for woman because they live longer an need a bigger pension fund! If there is going to be sexism in the insurance rates lets make it equal.

they do pay more for pensions

The_Conductor

madrab wrote:

they do pay more for pensions

The acturial tables have "risk equalisation" built into them (as they do for health insurance).

In the public sector, the acturial tables were only updated recently (as in, within the last 3 months) to take this into account. It is accepted that the current measure of risk associated with these tables does not comprise an accurate measure of the actual cost associated with honouring pension rights. This is precisely why the The National Pensions Reserve Fund was set up.

At present in the public sector, there is an onus on the part of the employee to claim the Social Welfare contributory Old Age Pension- as the bulk of their pension- this does not differentiate between sexes, and in practice comprises on average 60-80% of pension rights. (i.e. someone retiring from the civil service with 40 years service with a current salary of Euro 19,000 receives a state pension of less than 1,500 per annum- which is subject to acturially calculated contributions- along with a possible c.7,000 of Social welfare benefits which are not.....

If you have a look at post 1995 model schemes on the Department of Finance website it will go into a lot more detail.

I'm sorry- women receive massively favourable treatment in terms of pension contributions/ health insurance/ life assurance- along with equality (from a market perspective) in the car insurance industry. This is stated government policy- and is why the VHI and BUPA have been instructed that they have to operate an equalisation policy, both on sex and age.........

It is stated policy- and unlikely to change, as it would be political suicide for whoever tried to change it......

prospect

tinkerbell wrote:

The probability of a male being involved in an accident is significantly higher than the probability of a female being in an accident.

I don't think this is entirely correct, afaik the probability of a woman being in an accident is far higher than a male. But, the probability of a male being in a serious/fatal accident is higher than a female.

But even this is not good enough reason to say males are more dangerous on the road. Look at it like this:
1. There are more men on the roads than women, (fact)
2. There are more male professional drivers than women (trucks, busses, taxis, reps, couriers, etc)
3. Men spend more time on the road than women, (i know that whenever myself and my wife go out, i am always the one who drives)

Based on this, i reckon that if you could calculate the number of hours that men spend on the road, and the number of hours women spend on the road, and divide each by the number of accidents each had, the result would be almost the same.

The_Conductor

prospect wrote:

the number of accidents

And the seriousness of them......
Women are involved in more accidents than men, however the accidents men are involved in tend to be more serious......

Thats why we pay more insurance

Seth Brundle

Webmonkey wrote:

Yeah good point there. God damn speeders out there driving up the nice safe drivers quotes

Thats a fairly broad statement. Speeding alone doesn't cause accidents and event then it is usually inappropriate speed. Where is your comment about mobile phone users, crap drivers.....
The simple fact is that we don't know what causes accidents. Most accidents are categorised by the gardai into simple groups with the result that someone doing 5mph over the limit can now be blamed for a lack of world peace.

Stekelly wrote:

I'm standing by my opinion that we shouldnt be charged anymore than young drivers in other countries. Theres 17-18 year olds in Germany driving souped up BMW 5 series and bigger who are paying a fraction of what a similar driver is paying on his 1 litre micra.

The English have exactly the same ,if not worse "boy racer" culture that we have here, and in Europe its the same. The only difference is the level of testing and the fact that you have to take lessons, but thats the governments fault.

At the end of the day, young drivers are young drivers wherever they are from, and if young male drivers here are causing more claims here then I'll bet you its the same in England and Europe.

In Germany and (to a much lesser extent) the UK there are high testing standards. There is also tough road traffic enforcement whereby if you are caught breaking the law you really get punished. Here we don't have a proper driver testing regime (to the extent that 25% of drivers are unlicenced [heard on radio this morning]) and the enforcement is atrocious and when done is inappropriate

prospect

kbannon wrote:

In Germany and (to a much lesser extent) the UK there are high testing standards. There is also tough road traffic enforcement whereby if you are caught breaking the law you really get punished. Here we don't have a proper driver testing regime (to the extent that 25% of drivers are unlicenced [heard on radio this morning]) and the enforcement is atrocious and when done is inappropriate

So we are paying high insurance premiums because the Gardai and the Dept of Environ cannot do a decent job....

Damn you Bertie Ahern and your half @rsed government....

edmund_f

pretty much, the only real thing we can do as private citizens is to train ourselves to a level where our insurance is more reasonable, e.g. ignition and the advanced triving test. I think most people are coming around to the idea that the current driving 'test' is pretty much useless, both in terms of the test standards and the orginisiation of the provision of the test. What is driving cost of insurance is that people cannot drive. The thoughts of people being able to walk into an office and get a licence to drive (provisional) on open roads with only basic knowledge of the rules of the road?. It is the fault of the goverment and the cops that the roads are the way they are today, but we have to take some responsibilty ourselves - do you know a driver personally on the roads today who you would consider dangerous?. Are you going to do anything about it?. Are you one of them?. Driving is not genetic, you have to learn the same as everyone else. The male/female full/provisional young/old spoiler/no spolier arguments are just scapegoating (is that a real word?) and as long as we continue to have these arguments nothing effective will ever be done.

tinkerbell

prospect wrote:

I don't think this is entirely correct, afaik the probability of a woman being in an accident is far higher than a male. But, the probability of a male being in a serious/fatal accident is higher than a female.

Hey prospect, I had already corrected my post on this a few posts ago

prospect

Apologies tinkerbell, i was trying to speed read and have a cup of coffee! Just to prove that men can't do two things at once ....

Hey, maybe thats why they charge us more on insurance .
Case Closed!!!!!

Boggle

Personally, I'm driving since I turned 17 (25 now), never crashed and never got a ticket. Why should I be discriminated against when getting insurance just because some other blokes like driving home twisted from the pub?

I could explain how they use the media to build up an already existing prejudice against young males or how the insurance companies are manipulating the stats to read exactly the story they want it to read and why but I'm not going to bother at this stage - think I'll go to lunch instead...

elexes

i personally think that the fact that my gf can be insured fully comp with a provisional lisence on my car ( in her own name as only driver ) for 1300 where as poor old me with full lisence has to pay 2000 . makes no sence

(1.4 focus)